


Hell Hath No Fury

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Category: Video Blogging RPF, Youtube RPF
Genre: Ambushes and Sneak Attacks, Caretaking, Caring, Cruelty, Cults, Dark's aura is useful for more than he realized, Delirium, Exhaustion, Exorcisms, Friendship, Help, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Loss of Control, Mid-Canon, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Panic, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Prophetic Visions, Queerplatonic Dark/Host - Freeform, Rescue Missions, Rituals, Seizures, Time Loop, Violence, Whump, Worry, commission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 11:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18468055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: When Dark is captured by a group of fanatics who intend to use him as a sacrifice to their idol, the Host will go to whatever lengths necessary to get him back – even if it means greater suffering for himself. Commission Fic.





	Hell Hath No Fury

**Author's Note:**

  * For [parallelmonsoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/parallelmonsoon/gifts).



> Prompt: The Host is in a situation that forces him to use his powers in a much more intense way then typical. Perhaps to save/assist Dark against some kind of threat? In the aftermath, the Host becomes 'caught' in his powers, stuck seeing visions, can't control things, etc. Dark has to somehow bring him back to himself.

If one were to ask any of the other Ipliers whether or not it was possible to get the jump on Dark, the majority of the thirteen would have said no. Wilford naturally would have chuckled, pointing out the times when he had lured Dark into a false sense of security and then thrown himself at the eldest Ego for an embrace he didn’t particularly want. It was worth the threats of bodily harm he received!

This attack, however, was no plan of Wilford’s and it was nothing so harmless.

The first thing Dark became aware of as he returned to consciousness was the shrill ring of his aura, draped oppressively around him. It was as constant as his heartbeat; most of the time he was able to tune it out easily but right now it assaulted his aching head, stirring familiar, trembling tension in his neck and shoulders.

Biting back a growl of pain, cheek scraping heavily against the cold cement underneath him, he shifted his head. For reasons unknown, he didn’t have the strength to lift it, so he forced his bleary, glazed eyes open instead. He lay face down on the floor of a warehouse, though it had been dressed up in some attempt for grandeur. There were tapestries lining the walls with a crest that he vaguely recognized—a crudely stitched fist, encircled by silver lacing.

It was only after he had stared at that crest for almost a solid minute, waiting for his spiraling vision to focus, that memory floated back to him. His weakened muscles stiffened, quickening his breath and making him hyperaware of the sweat clinging to his back.  _The cult_. He had been taken by a cult.  _How_  it had happened, he still couldn’t remember, but  _why_ …

They intended to tear the spirit of the House out of his “weak, broken mortal body” and  _save_  him. They knew more about him than he had expected them to, Dark fumed as he exhaled harshly, jaw clenched with enough force to create a mold of his teeth in the gag they had stuffed in his mouth.

They believed he was demon-possessed; they never seemed to consider the possibility that he  _was_  the demon. When he had told them as much, they had only crooned soothingly, petting his cheeks even as he flinched away.

“We’ll save you, mortal!”

“You’re simply deceived!”

“We’ll free you so you have the choice to become like us!”

He hadn’t had the chance to bark back at them before one of the cultists behind him had taken a fistful of his hair, drawn his head back and stabbed a syringe into his neck. He’d lost consciousness quickly, but he could see now that they’d made progress in the time that had passed. Candles with sickly sweet scents had been lit in wide rings and silver chains of varying lengths and widths were looped in indiscernible patterns on the floor around him.

Had Dark found the strength, he could have broken free of the restraints wrenching his arms and legs in the wrong direction. His aura could have slipped effortlessly underneath the metal and tore it to shreds at his whim, but he didn’t have an opportunity before the wide metal doors on the other side of the warehouse clanged open.

What exactly he had been expecting, Dark didn’t know, but it wasn’t what he received. A boy who couldn’t have been older than seven slipped inside, little fists balled up around the folds of his ornate black and red robe so he wouldn’t stumble over it as he hurried inside, followed by an older girl, twelve or thirteen.

“You don’t have any idea what you’re doing!” she hissed after him.

He ignored her, coming to an abrupt stop a few yards away from Dark, whose eyes narrowed in calculating caution. The tinning in his aura kicked up an octave, questioning, and the boy dropped his robe to rub at his ears with a wince before remembering himself. Rounding on the nearest tapestry, he quickly kissed each of his middle fingers, clasped his hands and lifted them to the crest before stepping over the outermost ring of chains.

“Maverick, come back this instant!” the girl spat, sighing in exasperation before pivoting and performing the same acknowledgement. She, however, didn’t go quite as far as the boy, her eyes darting uneasily back and forth between Dark and the rings around him.

Dark stayed quiet and still; there wasn’t any indication that his mind was racing. There wasn’t even a shift in his breathing as the boy crept closer, hazel eyes alight with curiosity and…was that guilt? Sadness?

“Hello,” the boy—Maverick—whispered, bending down to peer at him more closely. “I’m here to tell you that we’re going to get you out.”

“This is childish,” the girl complained, folding her arms petulantly. “Come back over the seal, brother. You shouldn’t be here!”

“Well, he shouldn’t either! It’s not his fault!” Maverick protested with a glower over his shoulder. When he returned his attention to Dark, however, he smiled ruefully, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “Don’t listen to her, mortal. Maleah doesn’t think you can be saved, but I know better.”

“He’s nothing but a test that we didn’t need now,” Maleah scoffed, glaring daggers at her brother’s back. “Are you listening? He’s a distraction from the spread of our message! A waste of time!”

“Mother and Father said that the Paver brought him to us!” the little boy shot back stubbornly. “They say  _everything_  the Paver tells us is true!”

Dark would have been content to continue tracking the conversation in hopes of gaining more information, but a sudden spasm in his shoulders made his arms lurch in pain. The manacles straining his arms rattled angrily and Maverick startled, returning his full attention to him. Dropping from his hunch onto his knees and reaching out, he soothed, “It’s okay! It’s okay! You won’t need to be chained up anymore once the Paver lets you go!”

His small brows furrowed in concern as Dark merely growled in response. He was in no mood for pathetic reassurances; they meant  _nothing_. These children meant nothing. The only thing that consumed his thoughts right now was the crippling ache in his back, clawing its way up and down his spine. His neck desperately needed to be cracked back into place, but in this position there was nothing he could do. Despite himself, he was trembling, breath harsh and hot against the rough cloth.

Maverick swallowed hard at the sight, glanced back at his sister and then tentatively reached out. Dark froze, eyes tracking his small fingers as they wavered toward his face—toward the gag.

“Child!” an older voice interrupted from afar, before Maleah could even open her mouth. As soon as she spun around and saw who it was, however, she snatched the opportunity.

“Father, he was going to unbind the demon’s mouth!” she burst out. “He was going to free him!”

Anger closing in tight around his ribcage, Dark growled a second time, more softly, but Maverick retracted his hand, giving him a guilty glance as he rose and shuffled back toward the approaching adults. One of the men at the front of the ensemble lowered his hood, pressing his hands against Maverick’s shoulders.

“Is this true?”

“Only the gag,” he mumbled. “He looks like he’s hurt, Father, s-so I told him the Paver would save him! I wanted to let him answer!”

“The Paver  _will_  save him, in His own time,” their father agreed, his voice deceivingly kind as he glanced over his son’s head to Dark, his eyes hard and calculating. “But none of us can convince this lost one alone. It was compassionate and merciful of you, son, but only your elders are ready to heal him through our sovereign’s power.” With a light caress to the boy’s hair, he steered him toward his sister. “Go with Maleah. Trust that we know best and we’ll do  _everything_  we can to save the lost one.”

Reluctantly Maverick nodded, taking his frustrated sister’s hand and allowing himself to be towed back to the exit. Another hooded figure closed and bolted the doors behind them.

“You look no softer than you were when we left you, dark one. If not even a child’s innocence could reach the mortal underneath,” their father murmured as he and the rest of them spread out around their subject, “then we must fight greater battles to conquer this elusive demon than we thought.”

Dark’s aura flared viciously at those words, poisoned with thunderous red rage—and, though none of his enemies knew what it meant, a pale, near-imperceptible tinge of blue that was his fear.

~

Narrating urgently under his breath, the Host threw himself back into the seat of the cab, revisiting his Hindsight, the vision he’d seen.

_Darkness—aching—innocence—pain. Cold pressure against colder wrists that let to white heat—agony. Shattering. A mirror within a mirror within a mirror, already broken—Pressure, breaking further—Dark’s aura keening as blue and red bled from him, leaving nothing but the smoking blackness that dissolved away on the air like his last scream—_

That last image was the only one that mattered; it was what he was going to prevent, no matter the cost.

“The Host drums his fingers hurriedly against his knees, anticipating the battle ahead of him. If his friend was incapacitated by them, the Host must prepare himself for their resistance,” he muttered, barely audible.

“Sir, are you sure this is your stop?” the driver called back, sounding vaguely concerned as they pulled into the warehouse district. “This place looks like it’s closed for renovations.” At the Host’s insistent nod, he huffed, shaking his head a little as he relented. “Alright, then. Are you alright getting up at the curb? Do you need any help?”

“The Host can—” Before he could finish, an abrupt wave of nausea crashed over him, scalding every inch of his skin. He stiffened, legs kicking out at the back of the passenger seat as his Sight shimmered like a heat mirage. As quickly as it appeared, it passed, leaving behind a tingling, buzzing sensation in his ears.

“Sir, are you sure this is your stop?” the driver called back, sounding vaguely concerned as they pulled into the warehouse district. “This place looks like it’s closed for renovations.”

Hadn’t he just made that same comment moments ago? Sight spinning, the Host sputtered, ducking his head in what apparently looked like a nod, and he huffed, shaking his head a little as he relented. “Alright, then. Are you alright getting up at the curb? Do you need any help?”

Bewildered, the Host hesitated, biting back a gasp as the wave struck again, just as suddenly and briefly as the first. It felt as if the air was magnetizing to something behind him, dragging on him and putting pressure on his chest.

“Sir, are you sure this is your stop? This place looks like it’s been closed for renovations.”

Again? Gritting his teeth, he gripped at the folds of his coat with such force that his fingernails left creases, his stomach tumbling back and forth with the third unseen blow.  _The Host is in a time loop_ , he realized after the fourth, brows knitting in unnerved consternation when the fifth and sixth struck. He had been in loops before, when his narrations weren’t enough to compensate for his visions, but this was—

“Sir, are you sure this is your stop? This place looks like it’s—”

The Host didn’t let him finish this time, tearing out a wad of bills and tossing them onto the seat before scrambling out. He stumbled as his feet hit the pavement and narrowly avoided being clipped by the rear tire as he staggered hurriedly toward the warehouses. He slowed only when the taxi was put into reverse and disappeared from the lot.

Once a full minute had passed, the Host took a steadying breath, summoning the opening into the dimension that held his threads of reality. They pulsed hotly as he reached for them, eager for his touch, and through the barrage of voices and sounds, he found the taxi driver. His thread was  _knotted_ , he discovered, blood thickening behind his bandages as he brushed his fingers over it. A bitter taste burned over his tongue as he did so and he hissed in astonishment.

The driver was certain to find himself receiving a call that the Host needed a taxi. He would drive back to the point where they had met and return to this warehouse again. Again and again and again. It hadn’t been the Host’s doing—worse, it went  _beyond_  him, he realized as he Looked further, toward the warehouse itself. There were other distortions in this area, lurking somewhere between him and his friend. They had been placed there by another, as if…

Someone was trying to deter him from saving Dark. His Foresight flickered into play, flashing blurrily through the fight, through the screams and the blows and the billowing cloaks and the cracking of bones, but everything was ever so slightly out of sync.

Every time he passed through a distortion, he would need to find the point where  _his_  time and  _their_  time aligned before he could react.

That would take…considerable effort.

“The Host calls his reality to him,” he murmured, coaxing the threads to bind around his fingers. They slithered tenderly over him, slid into folds of his clothing and draped down his legs, following in his feet like a train as he shifted forward. “He intends to save Dark. He will  _not_  be denied.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he flinched ever so slightly. While his steps didn’t slow, he could feel a crawling sensation down his back and a solid lump in his throat. He had said those words before. Somewhere between him and success, there were loops that brought him back here again.

~

Dark’s breathing quickened as the rings of chains around him were pulled taut; the cultists weaved back and forth with them, crisscrossing them over each other to form an unknown pattern. They seemed to know exactly which movements to make. How many times had they done this before?

The wary noise he made low in his throat caught the father’s attention. He smiled benignly, almost sympathetically, and reached out to gently caress Dark’s face. Had his mouth been free, he would have snapped at his fingers, but as it was he could only reel away.

“Patience. You’ll be free in only a few minutes, mortal,” the father sighed simply as he put up his hood. As he stepped back, he began humming softly under his breath, barely audible to Dark as his aura’s reverb became shrill in his growing anxiety. The other hooded figures followed suit within seconds, until their whole ring was vibrating with low, haunting music.

Dark knew full well what could happen if they succeeded, but until this moment he hadn’t even considered it as a possibility. Clenching his eyes shut and swallowing hard, he squared his shoulders against his cuffs.  _If anyone is coming for me,_  he murmured lowly in his mind, _come for me now_.

It was then that strains of something familiar reached his ears from afar—a flowing murmur like a river rising and spilling over its banks. Dark’s hearing was superior to his captors’; it took them far too late to hear it too. Hope stirring in his chest, he lifted his head, eyes widening as the handles of the far doors dissolved into ash.

What followed was a thunderous boom of impact that caused everyone in the room to jump, but it was the only opportunity for a reaction they had before the Host stormed into view, the glow from the threads wrapped up and down his arms near-blinding.

A unique kind of joy surged in Dark’s chest at the sight of the group panicking, dropping their assigned chains and clamoring to defend themselves against the newcomer. Baring his teeth in a wicked smile around the gag, Dark only had to duck as the bodies went flying, cloaks torn and bloody, helpless screams lost underneath the Host’s grim, powerful narrations.

Once the clamor died down, Dark lifted himself, narrowed eyes panning with grim satisfaction over the bodies lying in motionless heaps. The only noise in the room was that of the Host’s panting and the terrified gasps of the one survivor—Maleah, who was staring, paralyzed, at her unbreathing brother.

“Is Dark well?” the Host questioned hoarsely as he fell to his knees beside him and draped his threads over Dark’s chains, burning through them within seconds.

“Yes…thanks to you,” Dark allowed, grimacing when his arms and shoulders ached as he rotated them. At long last he was able to twist his head and crack his neck; only then did his breath come more easily and he was able to rise. “We needn’t stay to cover our tracks; anyone who finds the bodies wouldn’t believe what killed them.”

He waited then for the Host to rise, but he didn’t, wavering slightly where he was on the floor, staring away at nothing. After a beat of silence, Dark held out a hand to pull him to his feet, which he accepted.  _He must be weary from exploiting so much of his power_ , he mused warily as he looked him up and down. His breathing hadn’t eased yet.

“What does Dark want the Host to do with her?” the narrator questioned, gesturing with his free, shaky hand at Maleah, who still stood motionless over Maverick’s body. When she heard the question, however, she flinched, hugging her arms around herself as if that could shield her. Dark’s mouth twisted skeptically.

“We ought to leave her alive to spread word of us,” he decided at last, turning toward the mangled doors. As he did so, his aura billowed away from him, finally allowed to stretch free, and a stringent  _crack_  and a young scream rang out moments later. “Alive…but  _irreparable_.”

Nodding heavily, the Host followed without a second glance at the girl, letting the threads crisscrossed over him dissolve from this dimension. As soon as he did so, his ears popped and a deep pain lanced through his skull behind his eye sockets, forcing him to bite back a hiss. “Darkiplier,” he called out, hoping his pain wouldn’t reflect in his voice. “Dark…must follow the Host. There is a set path; he will lead him out.”

How long had it taken him? How many loops had he thrashed his way through, burning his nerves, disorienting him to the point of vomiting and then walking into a loop where it never happened? But he couldn’t find the words to explain that to Dark; he could barely muster words at all. Shouldn’t he be unnerved or alarmed by that?

Dark followed in the Host’s footsteps as he moved ahead, rubbing at the bruises spanning his wrists and his neck and barely acknowledging the chill of the night air as he fell deep in thought. This was the closest he’d ever come to being stripped of his pieces…The origins of this cult were something that needed to be addressed. The children had mentioned “the Paver” as their sovereign. Perhaps, given some research, he would be able to—

Impact with the Host’s back was startling; when had he stopped? “Host!” he snapped in frustration, stepping back to regain his balance. “You said you would lead.” To his further surprise, the Host didn’t respond, head bowed low, shoulders hunched in and trembling, as if—

Dark opened his mouth to ask a question, but he didn’t get the chance before the world around them violently seized. As the Host suddenly doubled over, the street before them swerved. Any cars that were passing were stretched lengthways and sideways before disappearing entirely and the streetlamps twisted, their light contrailing outward in blinding circles before the bulbs shattered and burst. Dark himself wasn’t immune; his aura revolted, whipping and billowing as if in an unseen wind that knocked him back  _another_  step, then another, then another.

“Host!” he shouted over the rising din that had no discernible source. “Host, what’s happening?!”

“Hnh…hh…!” The Host’s wordless whines grew shriller as he tumbled onto the asphalt, panically pressing his hands against his face. Because the air between them was fluctuating, it took Dark too long to distinguish that he was scrabbling at his bandages, blood smearing across his palms and his damaging fingers.

“ _No!_ ” Dark near-roared as he lunged forward, locking his arms around his friend from behind to pin him and hauling him upright as he cried out. “What are you doing, you fool?! You’ve hurt yourself! Stop! Stop fighting me!”

“The H-Host can’t stop, he can’t—the endings are—his head  _hurts!_  He can’t  _make it_   _stop!_ ” The Host’s wail rose to a chilling scream as he thrashed, torn between pushing into and pulling against Dark’s grip. For his part Dark tightened his hold, forced to bear the brunt of the other’s weight as the Host kicked out at something unseen. The stench of metal was becoming caustic as blood poured from the fresh welts he’d scratched into his face and neck and Dark swore viciously, clenching his eyes shut as they stung against it.

“Hold still!” he spat, sweeping his aura around the both of them like a vast cloak, forcing pressure. The color drained entirely from the warped world around them and all sounds became muffled, but to his disbelief, the Host wasn’t stilling. This worked for his nightmares, for the days when his pain became debilitating—why didn’t it work now?!

“The Host Sees too much!” the younger Ego wailed, his voice cracking as he strained to be free and clutch at his head. “He Sees his death, his birth, the endless recycle—recycle—and Dark’s death is  _permanent_ —There’s no return! Only  _recycle_ , again and again, endlessly looping—He can never save him! It all leads to—to—!” He couldn’t finish, dissolving into narrations that were too fast and slurred to be intelligible.

“I’m  _here!_ ” Dark argued, digging in his heels and pressing his forehead against the Host’s sweat-drenched hair. “There’s nothing down that path, Host, calm yourself! Do you hear me?!” For just a moment he froze as the Host slumped back against his chest, shuddering with a delirious moan and a sob.

“Repeat…repeat…endlessly torn from red and blue, resolving former, dissolving latter, swallowed by the darkness, sewn and  _repeat_ ,” he rambled in breathless terror. “It will kill him, it will…The darkness…the crimson…He dies…He dies…”

“I don’t understand,” Dark stammered, the agitated anger in his aura softening in his confusion. The Host stilled just a fraction at it, ever so subtly, but it wasn’t enough. Just as quickly as it happened, he seized up again, almost wrenching free in his desperation that caught Dark by surprise.

“Wait! Host, tell me what you meant!” The other didn’t acknowledge this time, his cries incoherent, and it wasn’t long before their struggle sent them both to the ground, though Dark didn’t let go no matter how the Host struggled. He hollered at him. “Speak to me! Tell me what you meant!”

In the end the Host was curled on his side against the asphalt, Dark pinning him down with a leg over his side and both hands holding his behind his back.

“Stop!” he burst out again, more a plea than an order. “Let me  _help_  you!”

Inexplicably the Host flinched at the words, though the quivers that followed were slightly less pronounced than before. Dark noticed, brows furrowing in apprehension. It was only as the smoke restraining them eased its pressure and the Host’s stiffened fists loosened under his that he made the connection.

“Let me help you,” he repeated, lower than before, exhaling more shakily than he even intended to. “I only want to help.” With his next inhale, the red tension in his aura was stained with blue. “I…care. I care about you. My friend. I don’t want to see you hurting.” Lowering his head, he closed his eyes and took another breath, more deliberate. He focused the oxygen toward the snarled, solid lump of anger that never left his chest, trying to calm it as he murmured other meaningless reassurances.

Meaningless to him, perhaps, but to the Host it meant everything. His trembling was evening out startlingly fast as wisps that were bluer than red drifted over him, protective… _almost_  kind.

“That’s it. What you need is a moment to process all of this…to think.”

“The Host wants to think freely,” the younger Ego whispered, his first coherent sentence of the past fifteen minutes.

“Then do so,” Dark prompted softly, risking the release of one hand so he could comb tentative fingers through his tangled hair. When the Host leaned into the touch, he persisted, slow and steady. “Calm yourself. Free your thoughts. Daydream, if you must.”

After another thirty seconds, the last of the tension drained from the Host’s shoulders and he murmured thanks too quiet for Dark to hear specifically before slipping back into exhausted narrations under his breath. Cautiously Dark relaxed as well, eyes narrowing as they took in the shade of the air around them.

He hadn’t channeled so much of Damien at one time in…years. Already it was dissipating as his aura sensed his agitation at this fact, but he forcibly maintained the carefulness and gentleness in his touch so the Host wouldn’t sense the change.

Unbeknownst to him, his fingers grew noticeably colder against the Host’s scalp as the calm receded. He knew  _exactly_  when the change happened and the usual Darkness returned, but he gave no indication of it. He was too spent to take up his struggle again. The street before them was still wavering somewhat, but the cars were able to pass and the lamps had almost regained their full shape.

“The Host imagines,” he began faintly, “that what remains of his visions will recede once they are far away from this place.”  _Far away from the touch of the distortions and the one who put them there._

“Then I suggest we put that distance between us and everything that happened here as soon as possible,” Dark replied, sliding his hands under the Host’s arm to lift him to his feet.


End file.
